Make Damn Sure
by ADoubtfulGuest
Summary: House/Cameron and Wilson/Cameron oneshots, T for language and a lot of implied/not so implied mature content. Ch. 6: We all need something to show for our hard work, and she's worked hard for you. House/Cameron with lyrical aid from Jack's Mannequin.
1. Make Damn Sure

_A long night spent with your most obvious weakness, you start shaking at the thought_

It's clear, if they'd only look a little harder then they'd see it. The way that his features soften a bit, the tell-tale twitch of his upper lip. She's a contrast, a new toy, a challenge.

A challenge. Something that's so close, but he can't have it. _He can have it_. Common sense dictates that everything he wants is there for the taking, and always will be.

No matter what she says, she always will be.

_You are everything I want, because you're everything I'm not_

She's crude completion, is the way he explains it. He tells him that his young employee is the sloppy construction of everything that he's missing, the entire pieces of humanity that he seems to have been born without.

He tells his friend that he's an oncologist, not a psychotherapist, and walks out of the room.

_We lay, we lay together, just not too close, too close - how close is close enough?_

He's always standing too close, taunting, silent bets on imaginary actions. _I don't think you've got it in you_. How much more can she prove without breaking herself in half?

Stupid question. That's what he wants. For her to bend over backwards until she snaps, not into halves, he's figured, but into fourths.

Because the fact that she's already damaged only makes him want to hurt her more.

_I just want to break you down so badly_

He's the taste of coffee, and fading mint, and he's nicotine addiction, all because he stands that much closer.

His lips pose a level of curiosity that she doesn't expect, but she realizes that even if he knows everything about her, he doesn't know her.

He will.

_You hollow out my hungry eyes_

There's greed in every touch, every taste. The part of her that asks _Why now? _is overpowered by the part that counters _Why not? _The idea that he's high, or maybe just bored, crosses her mind, and she pushes it away like a pestilence.

As her fingers skim down to loop around two belt loops, he whispers to her, _Vous ferez reret il_, as if hoping she won't understand. _You'll regret it._ She nods once before bringing his lips back to hers.

It hadn't been a warning meant to change anything.

_Well, I trip over everything you say_

They don't see it, or maybe they don't want to. The way that the sound of her voice seems to freeze him, that every word she says seems to hit some undiscovered nerve deep in his brain.

They don't see it, or maybe they don't want to. The way that they spend too much time in the lab alone, that they steal glances like inexperienced delinquents.

_I'm gonna make damn sure that you can't ever leave - no, you won't ever get too far from me_

It's not as though she hasn't tried to get away from these silent escapades. She has. But if there's anything that she's learned through working for him, it's that you can't very well lie to others when you're lying to yourself. He knows that she wants this because she knows it.

And every time he stands that much closer, she tells herself to walk away.

If there's anything she's learned through working for him, it's that it's nearly impossible to walk away from what you want.

Especially when you can have it.

_Well, I just want to break you down so badly, in the worst way._

____

**A/N**: It's the songfic that's not a songfic! And yes, yes I do equally ship Cameron/House and Cameron/Wilson.

I don't own any of the characters in House MD, and I don't own the song MakeDamnSure.

xoxo

Nikki


	2. Still

If nothing else, she knows that she doesn't love him - not the way she should, anyway. She appreciates him, perhaps would be the correct way to say it. The way that he's a contrast on the outside - well groomed, charming, kind - but in reality he's simply a talented actor with a strong facade.

She figures that if she probes enough, she'll finally discover that he's not so different from the man she does love.

But still, she knows that she doesn't love him.

She's learned from the best when it comes to manipulation, but it's hardly a challenge to cloud his eyes. She's glad, because even in drastic times, she's still herself. She finds that it is more difficult than most imagine to completely detatch.

She guesses that the simplicity was a determining factor, not that she realized it at the time.

But still, there's no denying that she has manipulated him.

It's not an outright taunt, not a blatant plea for his jealousy; it's more like the subtle publicity of their status. She entangles her fingers in his, slowing her pace a bit to match his step, and smiles gently at the feeling it instills in her.

Not the feeling that she wants, not even close - just the tingling that tells her that he's watching, nothing more or less.

But still, she's sure that he's taken a significant dislike to their obvious exit.

She feels her back hit the wall, his rough kiss only one of the signs of his burdening mask. He seems distracted, she notes. The type of contemplative unawareness that she submits to every night to keep from whispering the wrong name. It's different with him, though, as though he's thinking too hard.

"James?" Softly said, but still a burning blasphemy on her tongue.

"What would you do if I told you I was in love with you?" He asks it without looking her in the eye, without moving his hands from their strong hold on her bare waist. This is a flaw in the plan, an unexpected roadblock.

But still, she knows that it's necessary. The end, as always, will justify the means.

For her, anyway.

"I'd tell you to lie to me," she whispers gently against his neck, moving to claim his lips with hers again.

______

**A/N**: Would someone be interested in being my beta? My usual proofreader doesn't know the show, so I'm stuck hoping that my work is sufficient enough as is. Pretty please with a scantily clad Jesse Spencer on top?

Or, if you're like me, a scantily clad Robert Sean Leonard?

;) xoxo

Nikki


	3. Cemetery Gates

He follows her out of sheer desperation. He's been dreaming again.

Of course, he never would have trailed her if he'd known that he would be led right to the cemetery.

Not that he's going to give up, not when it's gotten to the point where she's the only thing that seems real anymore. He gets out of his car, leaving the door partially open so as not to alert her to his presence, and gently begins to walk behind her.

She walks a short distance, occasionally trailing slim fingers over the top of a headstone. She looks ghostly in the dusk, so small and vulnerable.

He's a sucker for vulnerability.

She finally sits down in front of a grave, and absentmindedly begins to pluck wilted petals off of a long forgotten flower.

He approaches her from behind, finally close enough to touch the porcelain skin that's constantly weaving through the contours of his mind. He brushes his fingers against the back of her neck, enjoying the way that she shivers slightly under his touch.

She doesn't object as he lowers himself down to the cold ground beside her, or as he runs a numb knuckle across her lip. He hopes that she will pull away when he kisses her.

She doesn't.

It's the addiction that spreads through his veins like liquid nicotine. He brushes his lips across her navel, goose bumps erupting across her bare torso, and realizes that he never really has been good with consequences.

_____

House is throwing his tennis ball against the wall, his feet up on the desk. He simply sits next to his friend, the thudding accenting his mood. He hardly hears what House is telling him, he's not entirely himself.

"And then his dad walked in, and come on, I mean, he hasn't seen the guy in a decade. That's gotta be a seven on the screwed-up scale."

He sighs, wanting to take that stupid tennis ball and throw it at him.

"Where does fucking your friend's subordinate on top of her dead husband's grave fall on the scale?"

House lets the tennis ball fall into his lap instead of catching it in his hands, and he can see his knuckles turning white from the effort of self control.

They both know the answer.

__

**A/N: **Oi. This idea has been bothering me for a really, really, really long time. So I finally wrote it.

Please review, if you've read my profile then you'll know that my number one pet peeve is when people fav/alert and don't review. I'm a review vampire, I swear it. Your feedback gives me life.


	4. Always

_Give me anything in this whole fucking world that isn't_ _**exactly **__what it looks like._

_-Invisible Monsters, by _Chuck Palahniuk

____

You knew it from the start, and you ruined yourself anyway. You've always been a train wreck waiting to happen. You've always just been waiting for something to knock you off the edge.

Where he said he'd catch you, where he said he'd be, always. You thought that _always _was one of those words that doesn't change context. Now it just feels dry and sordid in your mouth.

All those days, all those nights, all those weeks and months and unknown eras where you found yourself thinking that this was too good to last, you should have taken your own word for it. You should have run, run for your life, escaped when you could still get out.

Because now, you can't get out. You're paralyzed.

_Everyone knows. _She always told you that with her eyes, _everyone knows it won't last. _Everyone knew that they had always been heading somewhere. You realized that you were just a roadblock.

Chemicals react.

You were on fire. You had everything you ever wanted, everything that was too good for you, everything that finally gave you the air that you'd needed.

You can't breathe.

Reactions subside.

You hope, at least, that he's happy. If you weren't damaged before, you are now. He can safely say that he was right.

He can safely say that he broke you.

Maybe, you think, as they pass you buy, something went right. She's smiling, he's straining himself not to catch your eye.

Maybe you broke him, too.

__

**A/N**: Written mostly for me, because I now know how Cameron feels, not just to be breakable, but to be broken.

_Give me one thing in this whole fucking world that isn't exactly what it looks like._

Maybe then, I can stop lying.


	5. Falling Apart

This is velvet, the smell of expired, worn velvet, the way that it slips between your fingers with its foreign softness, she is velvet.

Oh, silly mind, silly words from the back of your mind, you wonder why you said them at all. This is rhythm, gentle rhythm, the rhythm of what could have been and what is now and what will become of all your mistakes.

Two wires connect in your head, and you realize that everything that has seemed so unrelated is really just every pained nerve in your restless body responding to the fact that she's _gone_, so far gone now that it'd be wrong to pull her back again.

Call it euthanasia of five years, five years that are gone with one quick look, and she says yes, and you cut the cord, and who you are disappears.

You pull her back anyway, and she snaps so easily when you stretch it out, bring back five years, play the tension across her body like a stiffened old piano.

On-the-go composing is silent and swift in its hunger, something like you've never felt and never wanted to feel and never needed before.

This is desperation, fire in its purest, most undiscovered form, and you move your hands along her like an accomplished map maker who's charted the coasts in his mind a thousand times before, so many times that walking along them is simple and natural.

Oh, silly boy, worried boy, pretty but not loved, mysterious but not admired, the reason that she's not getting paid is because she's not working late, you know.

Quiet, hidden, unreal to the point that when she says _I do _you hear _I don't _and when she smiles and tells everyone that she's fallen hard, you begin to believe that she has really just fallen apart.

This is fluency in a language that few ever speak, some odd mix of lust and mistakes and complicated yet beautiful music, and they're just pieces of some invisible puzzle that's falling apart and cracking down the middle.

This is velvet.

___

**A/N: **I don't know how to say this in a way that makes sense, but this is suppose to be read in a quick, kind of choppy manner . . . like the manner in which you think when you don't really know what to think.

Anyway, this is for Evie, whose birthday was quite a while ago, but that's another story for another time, so we'll call this a birthday present.

Love that girl, happy birthday Evie!

********I'm actually really done with this by now, so if you favorite this without reviewing, I will send you a private message reminding you of my hate for readers doing just that. It takes so little time to leave a review, and it encourages me to write more. Please.*********


	6. Caving In

_You see, I've got this critical conscience - a brand-new black hole in the solar system._

The sky is falling and you wait it out, living off of borrowed time.

Holding her hand is like sounding the sirens; people stop and move aside, there are rubber-neckers. It's one of the reasons why you don't hold her hand.

You have no reason for not meeting her eyes as you kiss her that night.

_And don't you think I wish that I could stay? Your lips give you away._

Oh, she's burning again, crying again, the unfamiliar faces have you rooted to the spot one minute and flying out the door the next. You wish that she knew how much you want to give yourself up to her, completely.

But then, you haven't had both your feet in a room since you were ten. You know better by now.

_Even if your voice comes back again, maybe there'll be no one listening_.

There's always the chance that she won't take you back, but you're good with probability. Probably, she'll pout, she'll lecture, she'll glare, and then she'll give in.

Of course, what got you in the first place is that she's only so predictable.

_We're living well, but we're dying young to bankrupted blue skies._

It's strange, and terrifying, and utterly bewildering to think that _you _are what she wants.

It's even more mystifying to think that you resisted her for so long - the game lost its fun a while ago, and she's always been waiting for you to stop playing.

A shame, really, that you haven't stopped playing at all.

_Slow down, this night's a perfect shade of dark blue, dark blue; have you even been alone in a crowded room?_

Watching her at work, it's brilliant. She looks tortured and desperate, as though she'd like to scream until the ambulance came to take her away. Still screaming.

What good is the payoff if you have nothing to show for it? We need souvenirs and prizes and awards to hang on our walls. We need a lot of things that we won't always get - this was just one thing she never thought she'd have to work for.

_It's hard to keep the hinges on with all the noise._

Silence is not deafening. It's annoying, sure, but not deafening. After a while, though, you do start to hear ringing in your ears. You figure it's just from having listened to your iPod too loudly earlier in the day.

It has nothing to do with the fact that she hasn't said a word to you. You sigh.

You're trying to appreciate the silence, but she's making it so damn _difficult_.

_I had that dream again where I was lost for good in outer space_.

You watch her sleep and wonder what she dreams about. What does a woman dream about, anyway?

Men. You wonder if she dreams about you, or if it's possible that she might dream about someone else. Angry at the thought, you get out of bed loudly and slam the door, shaking her out of any dream that she might have been having.

Probably, you think as you bury your head in your hands and limp back to bed, she wasn't dreaming at all.

Probably, you're going a little insane.

_Every word you say, say something sweet, 'cause all I taste is blood between my teeth._

You sense the end before it happens, even when it doesn't happen. Every silent warning that passes the barrier of her teeth is resolute, but juxtaposed as always.

You miss conducting her every move, you miss the entirety of her sacrifice.

You miss the way that she looked hanging on your wall.

* * *

**A/N**: Something Jack's Mannequin oriented to honor the fact that I'm going to see them tomorrow; please take a moment and allow me to squeal pathetically.

-squeals pathetically-

I know, I know. What a kid. But I'm such a huge piano rock fan, and it's Jack's Mannequin and The Fray and . . . and . . . I'm kind of excited. And so I wrote.

Oh, and you should probably go listen to this song by The Fray, called Ungodly Hour. Because it's probably the most amazing thing I've ever heard in my life. Eargasm. I'll probably write something off it, but not for this fandom.

Anyway, the music, the music . . . The songs, respectively, are American Love, Rescued, Crashing, Suicide Blonde, Dark Blue, Spinning, Kill the Messenger, and I'm Ready, all by Jack's Mannequin. Who are amazing. So go listen to them.

:D

xoxo

Nikki


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